Swiss Re Group sees India units taking lead owing to more senior roles

The company has two centres in India, one each in Bangalore and Hyderabad and last year it announced the setting up of a centre in Hyderabad

Swiss Re Group, the world’s largest reinsurer and insurance firm, is betting big on its technology centres in India. Pravina Ladva, group chief digital and technology officer, Swiss Re expects more senior leadership roles will move to India over the next three years. Ladva also added that she expects India centres to lead programmes globally. 

Swiss Re India, the analytical and innovation hub of the Swiss giant has been in India since 2001. The company has two centres, one each in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The company announced the setting up of its Hyderabad centre last year and has ramped up the new centre with a few hundred people. 

“I see more senior roles coming into this geography over the next three years.   This also clearly opens up a career path for the colleagues that are already here. The second thing I see is a change in mindset. I see more and more programmes being led by Bangalore and Hyderabad not just for the Group Digital & Technology unit itself, but actually leading them for the entire organization,” she added.

Swiss Re has over 2,000 people in India. Globally Swiss Re has a total employee base of 14,000 and has a presence in over 50 countries. Ladva believes that the India centre is the true microcosm of the global reinsurer.

“Our Bangalore office has every single skill set represented there across the end-to-end value chain of an insurance company. So we have actuaries, underwriters, analysts as well as technical people. Because of the access to talent, our Bengaluru centre is a full end-to-end capability centre. It's because of that talent availability and our need to have greater access to that talent that we made the decision to open Hyderabad last year as well,” she explains.

Ladva shared that Covid has had a huge impact on the insurance and the reinsurance industry in general and on Swiss Re in particular and she feels that the role of technology will only increase in the sector.

 “Worldwide it is expected that by 2025 there will be 175 zettabytes of data available, and what’s incredible in this is that one-third of this data will be in real time. This opens real opportunities for us as an organization, especially when you deploy advancements in technology like quantum computing etc.” she added.

She further shares that many of the risk models and solutions are being run from India. “We have built a platform called Risk Data & Services that allows corporates to create digital twins of their assets to better their risk modelling. Such models are being created by our teams sitting in Bangalore. We are now building the same capabilities in our Hyderabad centre too. India is not just about the tech talent but the base for our biggest skill sets,” she added.

Another instance is Magnum, Swiss Re’s underwriting automation solution, which has been updated and developed for over 20 years plus, the core resources working on it are from India.

When asked what has been the single most significant impact of Covid, Ladva is quick to point out the blurring of lines between business and technology. “It’s amazing to see an underwriter and a data engineer sitting and working together,” she said.

She also added that to keep the India teams at the top of the game the company made sure that they are able to attract the best talent. She added that the last two years have made access to good remuneration a hygiene aspect. “We have made sure that our policies also attract and retain talent. ‘Own The Way You Work' principle allows employees to choose when, where and how to work. We have had this even before the pandemic," she added.